Feeling railroaded into secret missions

[BenMiff]

Just throwing this out there... but what if we made the spells considerably more expensive to craft? This would have the effect of ( I think ) making the missions have more meaning because each spell would require more work before it could be crafted. The missions would then be a much less time consuming route to get spells.

I'd argue that the issue is a lot more that mission spells are all common and only last one level and so are clearly inferior to crafted spells for the same effort. I wouldn't say increasing spell costs across the board is the solution though; I'd rather see duration split off from rarity. I'm thinking that the rarity orbs would still affect modifiers, but instead of a single cost for a spell, the current cost is for 1 level durations. The 2 level duration would then cost twice as much, the 3 level duration three times as much and the 4 level duration four times as much (so it becomes a matter of preserving rarity orbs rather than rarity orbs conserving crafting materials). The 3 level duration should gain an extra ingredient in the cost, while the 4 level duration should gain 2 extra ingredients, so the increased durations require some effort.

[Ulrox]

I'd argue that the issue is a lot more that mission spells are all common and only last one level and so are clearly inferior to crafted spells for the same effort. I wouldn't say increasing spell costs across the board is the solution though; I'd rather see duration split off from rarity. I'm thinking that the rarity orbs would still affect modifiers, but instead of a single cost for a spell, the current cost is for 1 level durations. The 2 level duration would then cost twice as much, the 3 level duration three times as much and the 4 level duration four times as much (so it becomes a matter of preserving rarity orbs rather than rarity orbs conserving crafting materials). The 3 level duration should gain an extra ingredient in the cost, while the 4 level duration should gain 2 extra ingredients, so the increased durations require some effort.

/agree. This is a great point imo.

[Mick]

I'd argue that the issue is a lot more that mission spells are all common and only last one level and so are clearly inferior to crafted spells for the same effort. I wouldn't say increasing spell costs across the board is the solution though; I'd rather see duration split off from rarity. I'm thinking that the rarity orbs would still affect modifiers, but instead of a single cost for a spell, the current cost is for 1 level durations. The 2 level duration would then cost twice as much, the 3 level duration three times as much and the 4 level duration four times as much (so it becomes a matter of preserving rarity orbs rather than rarity orbs conserving crafting materials). The 3 level duration should gain an extra ingredient in the cost, while the 4 level duration should gain 2 extra ingredients, so the increased durations require some effort.

I like this a lot, because it adds a lot of choice to crafting. If you want to get the most out of your rare orb, you could make the choice to save up a lot of extra materials for that spell to create a longer duration version of it. I wonder if a straight up doubling/tripling/etc is enough though, because it seems since you are limited in rarity orbs then maxing it out would always be the best choice. Maybe the duration bonus should involve a 2.5x cost per level (rounded up). That way you could have the option to craft spells more efficiently, but the trade off would be that you wouldn't be getting as much out of your rarity orbs.

[BobTheJanitor]

Crafting materials would need to be a lot more common in that case. See my rant above about just trying to get two comet shards. Heaven forbid I had to track down 8 of them.

[Mánagarmr]

You could also go the Arcen way: Make it optional. xD

[Misery]

On a related note, I'm not sure how much I like the arcane crafting ingredients now being limited to only stash rooms or dispatch missions. For example, I'm trying to get a couple comet shards (I think that's what it was anyway) and none of my settlers have enough of a survival/success chance to make it worth sending them. So I look to see where it can be found. Seems the best place is swamps. I ran through some swampland, and apparently buildings there are extremely rare. I think I found one, maybe two? Plus stinging nettles everywhere that barely can be seen sometimes because they spawn low in the ground, plus wisps grabbing me all the time. I got out of there with 1/10th of a health bar and no crafting ingredients to show for it. Next most likely is craggy highlands, of which I have none on this continent. So the last place to find them is thawing woods. So I go clear out all the stash rooms in all the buildings for several chunks, but still not a single one of the ingredients I need. All told this was probably 1-2 hours of game time with a clear goal that I wanted, but I never got even one of the ingredients I needed. Of course under the old system it was just as likely that missions wouldn't spawn with what I needed either. So the whole thing might be a wash either way.

That one sounds more like the RNG being a snot;  I dunno about the swamps, but I've found that Comet Shards are pretty common in the Highlands areas.   It sounds like also the swamps need a higher chance of having buildings in each chunk.... heck, even ocean areas have them now!

I like the current system because it makes all the stashes/exploration actually WORTH it..... I wouldnt wanna see crafting ingredients go back to mission rewards at all.   What needs to be done though, is tweaking some of the numbers related to how common things are.  Finding room after room filled with boxes/platforms/shards/more platforms is pretty annoying;  those things increase the rarity of EVERYTHING ELSE just by existing, currently, which is pretty annoying.   Aside from that, the rarity values seem MOSTLY fine.   Though I'm not finding nearly as many "gift" items as I'd like..... particularly now that it's time for me to deal with the Overlord, and apparantly it takes 80 squillion gifts to get someone ready to even have a chance of surviving at all...

[Mánagarmr]

Perhaps we need stashes to start seeding antidepressants?

[Ulrox]

Perhaps we need stashes to start seeding antidepressants?

Already on them, aswell as antipsychotics and anti seizure drugs, and various medicinal herbs

[Misery]

Perhaps we need stashes to start seeding antidepressants?

At least those would almost make SENSE, kinda.

Alot of the gifts are pretty..... strange.

In my game I just got the overlord down to the lowest level they can be at, and I did this by handing one of my adventurers a couple of books, 5 cowboy hats, and a clock, and then sending her on the same mission over and over.

Granted, this was hilarious, but still, definitely strange

[Ulrox]

True enough. It would make more sense for the villagers to get armors and weapons which makes them better at fighting and taking on the overlord, rather than 8 lumbermancy books, what is a villager going to use that for? chopping down the overlord fortress at key structure points so the fortress stops being very effective? hehehe. Makes a lot more sense to give that person a mini nuke, some adamantite armor, and a cowboy hat (IT GIVES SELF CONFIDENCE )

[BobTheJanitor]

Perhaps we need stashes to start seeding antidepressants?

Already on them, aswell as antipsychotics and anti seizure drugs, and various medicinal herbs

These would only make sense if you found them in bathrooms by destroying toilets where they had hastily been hidden. Are there cops on Environ?

[darkchair]

After playing again for a while...

One problem as mentioned earlier is that resources in this game are now of a limited quantity, which can make complications.
Maybe there can be a new scroll one can make to create new chunks (on the same square as another chunk) or overwrite an old chunk? An exploration scroll?
Am I using the term chunk correctly? 

An adjustment I would make to the surface missions is that in order to get a spell, you have to complete a series of missions. Right now, just doing one mission is very quick and trivial. If a series of missions were required, the spells could even be upgraded depending on how long the "quest" is (you could get a rare spell for completing a string of 6 missions or so; do 8 missions and beat a lieutenant-level boss to get a legendary spell [make these quite rare or craftable of course]). This would also solve the above note that the surface spells become worthless over time.

In terms of secret missions feeling "grindy", I don't agree very much. There's the excitement of exploring and battling your way to new areas, and the chance of getting a bonus-granting structure (like a lighthouse or a "?city fungus garden?"). I feel more roadblocks in this game are needed to add more substance to this game, maybe it will make exploration for "the grind" more fun as well.

[BobTheJanitor]

A chunk is one 'section' of the side scrolling part of the game. From where you appear at one end, to where you exit it at the other end (to enter the next chunk) would be one chunk. One tile on the overworld map is a region, which contains multiple chunks inside it. I'm pretty sure this is right, although I admit to being a little shaky on the terminology myself from time to time.

[Mánagarmr]

A chunk is one 'section' of the side scrolling part of the game. From where you appear at one end, to where you exit it at the other end (to enter the next chunk) would be one chunk. One tile on the overworld map is a region, which contains multiple chunks inside it. I'm pretty sure this is right, although I admit to being a little shaky on the terminology myself from time to time.

That's how I understand it as well.

[BenMiff]

An adjustment I would make to the surface missions is that in order to get a spell, you have to complete a series of missions. Right now, just doing one mission is very quick and trivial. If a series of missions were required, the spells could even be upgraded depending on how long the "quest" is (you could get a rare spell for completing a string of 6 missions or so; do 8 missions and beat a lieutenant-level boss to get a legendary spell [make these quite rare or craftable of course]). This would also solve the above note that the surface spells become worthless over time.

I'm not so sure a set "path" of missions would necessarily be good, since there are some missions that are quite dividing in terms of popularity, and doing half a path only to be given something the player dislikes is something that would push the player away from surface missions, not towards them. I do like the idea of having better rewards for more difficult mission "strings", though; perhaps some way to up the level of a mission to have it give a better reward? (Alternatively, if the concern is time allow the player to build their own "strings" by selecting a string on the overmap (possibly via (purchasable) guardian scroll?) they then progress along, with the later missions getting scaled up accordingly.)